All's Fair in Love and Pranking
by MeganRachel09
Summary: In which a prank is interrupted and improved upon in a most unexpected way and other Jily firsts. Jily Week 2017: Canon.
1. All's Fair in Love and Pranking

Day 1 of Jily Week 2017 on tumblr!  
Prompt: First Meeting /or/ **Pranks _._**

Valentine's Day at Hogwarts was always a pink and red and fluttery affair, thanks to the hearts hovering all over the castle. Most of the coupled-up people in school loved the decorations in the corridors, the Great Hall, even in every single classroom, while a majority of the perpetual singles hated it. Then there were those who looked at those pink and red hearts fluttering about and saw _opportunity_.

James Potter and his friends were the sort who saw opportunity; they were also the sort who had an infamous habit of never letting an opportunity pass them by, especially when it was an opportunity for mischief.

And so, on Februrary 13, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black snuck out of their dormitory in the middle of the night to tamper with the festive pink and red hearts hovering all over the castle. They were halfway through with the hearts in the Great Hall when the door creaked open, causing all of them to panic and freeze. It was with an odd mix of relief and dread that James watched as Lily Evans walked in followed closely by a frazzled Remus Lupin.

"I knew you were steering me away from here for a reason, Remus," she said with one arched eyebrow. "And what is going on here?"

"Nothing!" Peter said immediately, lamely attempting to hide his wand behind his back. "We were… hungry."

"Please. I _know_ you're not so stupid as to think the House Elves keep food on the tables between meal times." Lily shook her head with a small smirk as she advanced towards them. "I also happen to know that you all are well aware of the location of the kitchens. Now, why don't you tell me what you're really doing?"

Unfortunately, she chose that moment to step under the heart that Sirius had just finished charming. She frowned when it followed her, looking up before leveling her cool, expectant gaze on the four boys who all looked pleased to find their work successful. "What have you done?"

"It's a harmless prank," Remus was quick to say, drawing her attention to him. "It's just going to follow you for two hours."

"Either that or…" Sirius wagged his eyebrows suggestively at her.

"Until someone kisses me?" Lily guessed, glancing between the four boys.

"Not just anyone," James told her with what he hoped was a nonchalant shrug. "It's got to be someone you fancy."

"Two hours, which would be the standard class period. If someone's got a heart hovering over their head during class, all the more attention to them." Lily's gaze lingered on him for a moment, her expression unreadable. James's hand jumped to his hair and her lips twitched. "That's a bit brilliant."

"Yeah?" James felt himself grinning. "It was my idea."

Sirius snorted at his enthusiasm, but James didn't care – Lily Evans thought something he came up with was _brilliant_.

"Need some help?" Lily offered, fishing her wand out of her robes. "The less time we spend in here, the less of a chance there is of someone catching us out. With five of us, we'll get it done in no time."

"Really?" Peter asked, eyeing her warily. "You're not going to turn us in?"

"No." Lily rolled her eyes and flipped her hair out of her face. "It's like Remus, said, this is a harmless prank. Just explain to me how you did it and I can start over here."

James watched as she turned to Remus for a quick demonstration and forced himself to pretend he wasn't disappointed that he hadn't been able to show her. He had been the one to concoct the spell – with a little help from Sirius – but he supposed it made sense that she would choose to learn from Remus. He was after all, the only one of the four boys that Lily truly considered a friend even if her opinion of all four of them had improved greatly since the disaster by the lake at the end of last year.

"That's all of them," Lily said about twenty minutes later, looking around as the boys all carefully maneuvered their way through the Great Hall, avoiding hovering hearts as they went. She huffed when they all made it to the door without any hearts over their heads. "Of course I'm the only one to look like a fool."

"You've only got about an hour and a half left. And at least it's the middle of the night," Peter consoled her.

"Or you could fess up and snog the bloke you fancy." Sirius grinned when her cheeks flushed. "Oh, so you do fancy someone! Go on, tell us. It might take some doing, but the four of us could manage to get you into anyone's dormitory."

James frowned and picked at the sleeve of his robe. He didn't particularly want to know who Lily fancied if it wasn't him. He looked at her, saw that she had her mouth clamped tightly shut, and decided to change the subject.

"We've still got the rest of the first floor to go," he reminded his friends.

"And the dungeons," Peter added.

"Wait, you're doing the entire school?" Lily asked, staring around at them in wide-eyed incredulity. When they nodded in confirmation, she shook her head. "You lot are mad. I thought you were only doing the Great Hall."

"We are nothing if not thorough, Red," Sirius told her.

"Besides, it wouldn't be as funny if the hearts only got attached in the Great Hall. People would be eating, not snogging," Peter added. "They wouldn't particularly care if there was a heart over them while they ate."

"I don't know. I've witnessed some pretty aggressive breakfast snogging lately." Lily shot Sirius a disgusted look and he beamed proudly.

"Saw that, did you?" He winked at her. "What can I say? McKinnon wanted a snog, so she got a snog."

"We should split up," Remus interrupted. "If half of us get the rest of the first floor and the other half get the dungeons, we should be finished within the next hour."

"Good plan. I'll take the dungeons," James offered. "Who's with me?"

"I'll go," Lily and Sirius said at the same time.

"…with Remus and Pete," Sirius amended quickly, shooting James a wink that he almost missed because he was too busy staring, shocked, at Lily.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to act unaffected. "Okay. Have you got the… er…?" He trailed off with a significant glance at Lily, who looked puzzled by his sudden secrecy.

"Got it here." Remus patted the pocket the Marauder's Map was in. He had taken it with him when he went to join Lily for their rounds so that he could periodically check in and see which area of the school to steer her away from. "You'll be okay without it?"

Remus was the only one who looked slightly concerned for him. Sirius was shooting suggestive glances James's way and Peter was shifting anxiously – they had been in one place too long, longer than they usually spent in one area when they were pulling something like this.

"Yeah, I've got my Cloak if anything happens," James assured them, ignoring the delighted look on Sirius's face at that; he didn't need to focus on the knowledge that if they ended up needing it he and Lily would be sharing a very small space under his Invisibility Cloak.

"What was that about?" Lily asked when the two groups had split up. "That mysterious business about ' _have you got it_?' and a cloak?"

James was silent, for a moment as he mulled over what to say to her. He sighed. "It's… a secret?"

"What is? _It_? Or the cloak?" Lily hesitated briefly when he held aside a tapestry and gestured for her to step into the passageway behind it. It wasn't really a shortcut, but James was certain Filch didn't use this particular passageway, so it was safer.

"Both," he said quietly as he brushed past her in the narrow space to lead the way since she didn't seem to know what this passageway was. Behind him, Lily huffed. James looked over his shoulder to find her scowling at his back. He sighed and turned around to face her, walking backwards. "Look, if I tell you about one, will you drop the other?"

Eyes narrowed, Lily studied him. She seemed to be weighing something in her mind. After a few seconds, she nodded. James stopped and reached into his robes to pull out his Invisibility Cloak. Lily kept walking a few steps after he had stopped so that she was quite close to him, her gaze firm on the silvery material of his cloak. She reached out, touched it, looked as if she considered just taking it out of his hands even though he hadn't offered it to her.

"It's pretty," she finally said.

"It's an invisibility cloak," he told her.

"I assumed as much. I've never actually seen one before." She looked up at him and seemed taken aback at the proximity of his face to hers. She blinked and averted her gaze, shoving a stray lock of auburn behind her ear. "How long have you had it?"

"Ever since I started school, so nearly six years now." He wasn't disappointed to see the flash of surprise on her face. Invisibility cloaks were extremely rare and, furthermore his was the only one he knew of that had held up for more than a couple years. Far more than a couple years, really. "It was my dad's before it was mine. And his dad's before that, and so on and so on. Been in the family for centuries."

"You're lying." She squinted up at him in the dim light. "That can't be true."

"It is, though." Something in his face or his voice or his eyes must have conveyed his earnestness because her eyes widened, stunned. His grip on the cloak tightened for a moment and then he held it out to her. "You want to try it?"

Excitement shone on her face as she took it from him. He watched her disappear with an acute sense of trepidation. The only people he had ever let so much as know about his cloak were Sirius, Peter, and Remus – the three blokes he considered to be his brothers – and now here he was letting Lily bloody Evans, who for all he knew may not even particularly like him, wear it.

She reappeared with a delighted laugh behind him and James whirled around. "That's fantastic!" she said, then seemed to notice his wild-eyed stare. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He ran a hand through his hair roughly, frowning; he wasn't used to feeling this way. His heart was racing, his palms a bit sweaty. Anxious. He was anxious. He hadn't liked watching her disappear, was more than a little wary of her knowing one of his secrets – not even close to his biggest secret, but a valuable one nonetheless. He accepted the cloak back from her, folded it carefully, and tucked it back inside his robe. "Please don't tell anyone."

Lily studied him for a moment and seemed to realize that him sharing this with her was a _big deal_. She shook her head slowly. "I won't."

They continued walking and, right before they reached the end of the passage, Lily spoke again. "If it's such an important secret, why did you tell me?"

He shrugged. "The cloak is mine; it's only my secret. The… other thing… it's not mine. It's ours. I couldn't tell you… or anyone else… without their permission."

"But you didn't have to tell me anything," she pointed out. "You could have told me to bugger off, or lied. I wouldn't have known."

But she would have known. Lily Evans, as much as she might not want to admit it, _knew_ him. She knew when he was plotting, when he was nervous, when he was truthful, and when he was lying. They weren't friends – not exactly – but they weren't enemies and never really were. They had been orbiting each other ever since they had met, had paid so much attention to one another – maybe not always in the best ways – and they _knew_ each other.

"I dunno, Evans," he said. "I guess I figured I had to tell you something. And you are helping us out with this, so…"

He shrugged. After studying him for a moment, she nodded and let it drop. This time when he held the tapestry aside for her, she moved past him without hesitation, muttering a quick, "Thank you."

It wasn't all that awkward, really, being alone with Lily. They worked in a comfortable silence, moving quickly through all of the dungeon classrooms and corridors. He was relatively certain that they were going to finish before the others and would be up in the common room long before them. He finished charming the last of the hearts and surveyed the room they were working on to make sure they hadn't missed any.

"All right, I think we're done," he said and froze when he turned to find Lily standing a few feet away watching him. "Are you okay?"

"I just realized." She looked up and James noticed that there wasn't a heart hovering over her head. "It's not following me anymore."

"Must have been an hour," James told her. "Just be careful to avoid any of these tomorrow. Should be do-able."

"No, I…" She shifted her weight on her feet and flushed.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I was thinking… it might have been interesting… to kiss it away." She took a step toward him.

"Evans?"

"You're so confusing to me, James," she told him, her voice timid. "I don't know how I feel about you… It would be nice to know."

"You think… you think you may fancy me?" His voice cracked on the word 'fancy,' but he didn't really give a damn. Lily Evans just said she might _fancy_ him! "Go on. Step under another and we'll figure it out."

He moved closer to her and didn't notice the cluster of pink hearts between them until he was already standing under them. The hearts came to life above him and began orbiting all around his body.

"Shit! What the hell?" He stared up, horrified to find glitter pouring down on him, and realized quite suddenly that Lily was cackling, all but doubled over next to him.

"Oh my God, was that ever easy!" She clutched at her side, her breath wheezing in uninhibited laughter.

"Evans, _what_ did you do to me?" It was a stupid question that didn't require an answer; it was pretty damn obvious what she had done. Ever the Charms prodigy, she had out-pranked him and improved the charm he had created.

"Good luck getting rid of that," she said when her cackling had subsided into giggles.

"I can handle this for two hours." He hoped he sounded confident even though he felt less than. He was sure he made quite the picture standing beneath a cloud of pink mist raining chunky red glitter on his head and surrounded by fluttering pink hearts. If something happened and he needed to use the Invisibility Cloak… well, being invisible wouldn't help with all this surrounding him.

"Not one hour," Lily giggled. When he shot her a horrified, questioning look, she grinned at him. "Twenty-four hours."

He just stared at her. How in the hell had she managed to so spectacularly get one over on him like this? If he were being honest with himself, it sort of made him fancy her even more. He watched as she skirted around him and started to run up the staircase away from him, her laughter echoing behind her.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Potter!"

* * *

This was written very quickly, so it's not my best work but it was pretty fun to write! Hope you enjoyed it!  
I'm jilyyall on tumblr if you want to come talk to me!  
Thanks so much for reading 3


	2. I would tell you to call

I would tell you to call, but you wouldn't understand.

Jily Week Day 2 – Letter Writing

* * *

8 July 1977

Dear Potter,

I kissed you at Platform 9¾ and told you to write me. It's been over a week, you abominable twat. If I don't hear from you posthaste, consider yourself dead to me.

Yours unless you don't write back,  
 _Lily Evans_

PS I hope you are having a good summer with Sirius, Remus, and Peter.

* * *

9 July 1977

Dear Evans,

I had half convinced myself that you kissing me was a dream. When Remus assured me that it had actually happened, and that I looked like a petrified jellyfish afterward, I nearly lost my shit. I kid you not, it was a very embarrassing sight. You would have loved to see it.

For fear of seeming a bit overeager (which, truthfully, I am), I allowed myself to be talked out of writing you immediately. I am never taking Sirius's advice again.

My summer is going well. Remus and Peter have popped in a few times, but it's mostly been just Sirius and me, and our parents.

How has yours been? I hope your parents are willing to afford you the freedom of adulthood since you are, in _our_ world, an adult now.

Yours, hopefully,

 _James Potter_

PS – I wrote back immediately, so you cannot kill me off yet.

PPS – The blokes and I are going to be in Muggle London on Wednesday so Sirius can look at flats. Would you care to meet up?

* * *

10 July 1977

Potter,

Are you inviting me on a date or to join you and your friends?

 _Lily_

* * *

10 July 1977

Evans,

Straight to the point now, are we?

There are few things in life I will ever ditch my friends for. A date with you is apparently one of them.

Meet me outside the Leaky Cauldron at 3:00 day after tomorrow? It's the only landmark I know in Muggle London.

 _James_

PS – You should feel honoured that I am ditching my friends, you know. They are going to be so hurt.

* * *

11 July 1977

Make it 4:00 and you've got a date.

 _Lily_

PS – I know, I know. I'm a regular Yoko Ono. Never mind, I'll explain tomorrow.

* * *

11 July 1977

I know The Beatles. One of Sirius's many forms of rebellion when he was still living with his family was Muggle music.

See you tomorrow at 4:00.

Elated,

 _James_

PS – Just warning you now, I am going to kiss you properly when I see you. None of that petrified jellyfish nonsense. Be prepared.

* * *

13 July 1977

James,

I had a lovely time even though the boys did track us down and make us look at flats with them.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week at Sirius's flat-warming party.

Yours,  
 _Lily_

PS – Feel free to kiss me like that next time you see me as well. Any time you see me, really.

* * *

I live in New Orleans and today is Mardi Gras, so I've been gone all day and just got home lol.  
Hope you enjoyed this. Not _entirely_ sure what it is.

 _Laissez les bons temps rouler._


	3. I would just flirt with you

Jily Week 3 Day 3 – I would just flirt with you, but you wouldn't realize what I was doing.

 **First Kiss** /or/ Quidditch  
Summary: James is oblivious to all of Lily's hints, so she takes matters into her own hands.

* * *

He was coming towards her in the narrow train corridor, towering a full head over the crowd he was pushing through, his mates trailing along behind him. Well, he wasn't exactly moving towards her, but in her general direction like everyone else since she stood near the door for no other reason than because she had hoped to intercept him. She had said goodbye to her friends already back in their compartment before the train had even reached the station.

"Hey, Evans." James grinned over the heads of the crowd when he spotted her.

With one hand he pulled his trunk along behind him and the other held a bag she suspected was filled with contraband he had somehow managed to sneak past Filch – why the caretaker wanted to stop people from sneaking banned items _out_ of school was a mystery to her, but he had spent hours randomly searching people's trunks this morning and there was no way he had let James and his friends go without a thorough inspection. Had either of his hands been free, she felt certain that it would have raked through his hair, a habit of his that used to bother her but which she had recently become quite fond of.

"Hello, Potter." She fell into step with him, ignoring the indignant sound Sirius made when he had to pause to let her in next to his best mate.

"Hi, Red, nice to see you as well. I'm fine, and you? No, don't worry, I wasn't walking there already," Sirius said loudly.

"Hello, Remus. Hello, Peter." Lily paused dramatically, then looked over her shoulder and caught Sirius's eye. "Hello, Black."

"Hi, Lily," Remus said, nudging Sirius with an elbow to the side.

Next to him, Peter waved. Sirius fell back a few more steps, not-so-subtly giving James and Lily a bit of space. Lily turned to look at James only to find him smiling down at her as they pushed their way through the crowded platform.

"Big plans this summer?" James asked. "Now that you're seventeen and all, you can do whatever you want."

"Still underage in the Muggle world," she reminded him. "Can't drink. Can't get a tattoo without my parents' permission. Can't really do anything without my parents' permission, actually."

"What a joke!" James's eyes were wide and horrified as if he could not imagine a world so cruel as to not allow a seventeen-year-old to make their own choices. "You could always come over to mine and hang out. If your parents let you."

Her heart skipped a beat. This was exactly what she had wanted, and she hadn't even had to hint. She had been trying to subtly let him know that it was about time he asked her out, but he hadn't caught on to any of her hints last semester and now it was summer break and she had been so worried she wouldn't be able to see him until September.

"Yeah?" She tried to keep the excitement out of her voice. Calm, aloof, that was how she should play this. "Your house?"

"Sure. Sirius, Remus, and Peter are almost always there, so it definitely won't be boring." He paused, jerked his chin back over his shoulder. "Well, Sirius lives with me, so he's definitely always there."

"Thinking of getting my own flat this summer, though," Sirius chimed in, his voice coming from just over her shoulder, so Lily assumed he had been too curious about their conversation to keep his distance.

"You don't have to. You know my parents will let you stay as long as you like," James insisted with the certainty of someone who must have had this conversation a hundred times.

"Yeah, but it would be awkward to bring home all the birds I plan on bedding this summer if I'm still with Mum and Dad P," Sirius pointed out casually as if he weren't at all ashamed that his plans for the summer seemed to include nothing more than having sex with as many girls as possible. Of course, that would be because he wasn't at all ashamed.

Once, Lily had thought James Potter to be the proudest person she had ever met. That was before she had gotten to know Sirius Black, whom she had yet to see show even the slightest hint of shame.

"So, you think you want to come?" James asked, turning his attention back to her and away from Sirius.

"To your house." Lily repeated. "With the four of you."

"Yeah, it'll be fun. We've got loads of plans." He let go of his trunk and set his bag atop it, turning to her towards her as e launched into a detailed list of all the potentially illegal plans they had for the summer, but Lily wasn't paying attention.

Here, she had thought that he had finally cottoned on, figured out that she fancied him, and decided to make a move. She didn't know why she had allowed herself to believe that as he had shown, time and time again, that he was oblivious to any and all of her attempts to flirt with him.

He was still telling her his plans when she stepped in front of him and cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and launching herself up on the very tips of her toes to kiss him. He froze, his arms around her but not touching her, hands still mid-dramatic-gesture.

When she pulled back, his eyes were wide behind his glasses and he was staring at her as if he couldn't believe such a thing had happened to him. She only hoped it was a favourable reaction and not a negative one.

Dropping back down onto the balls of her feet and sliding her arms free from him, it wasn't difficult at all to ignore everyone staring at them when he, seemingly unintentionally, leaned forward after her. He made a funny picture, his arms stiff and outstretched, his hands flung out and frozen in an explosive gesture, his back and neck bent down towards her.

Face flushed, she grinned up at him. There was no way in hell he could misinterpret her interest in him now.

"Maybe we could hang out just the two of us at some point." When he nodded stiffly, his mouth open and eyes still wide, she laughed and shook her head, backing away from him. "Just write me, okay?"

With that, she turned on her heel and walked away from him to search out her parents in the crowd.

* * *

Another one that was fun to write! Hope it was fun to read, as well!  
Thanks for checking it out :)


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